Transat Race - 11th May!

The Transat race is held every 4 x years, and is made up of 30 or so yachts sailing solo across the Atlantic from Plymouth to Boston - so far the shortest time has been 12 days to complete the distance. It started in 1960, when the first inaugral race was won by Sir Frances Chichester in Gypsy Moth III in 40 days. It is often referred to as one of the toughest race due to the solo conditions and prevailing winds across the North Atlantic to the USA. During the week before the start of the race on 11th May, all the Transat yachts were arriving in Plymouth to prepare for the event ... they were looking very colourful in Sutton Harbour. The place was full of tanned, muscular Frenchmen sitting cross-legged on the quay, playing with ropes of various colours, or climbing up masts ... sacre bleu!! As you can imagine, several trips to the Harbour were made ...

At the time, we had Julia staying with us, as well as Clive and Mandy. On the actual day, we managed to get seats on a charter boat which was going out to view the start of the race from amongst the yachts. It was a very hot day, and we had not got time to go back home to collect suntan oil/hats, but there was plenty of bottled water for sale, and luckily we all had our cameras, so had a wonderful view of all the Transats as they prepared for the start of the race. We saw Gypsy Moth IV as well, which made it all the more interesting (see the nearest - and smallest! - yacht in the picture below).

The build up to the start was very exciting - all the Transats had to move themselves as near to the start line (marked by 2 x warships about 1/2 a mile apart) as possible, and the ones which were nearest when the start gun went off would be lucky. We were allowed to get fairly near them (us and several hundred other boats of various sizes!) up until the last 20 minutes, then had move back away from start line area so the Transats could start positioning themselves. There were boats of all kinds jostling for the best viewing position, including a pirate boat!!

The Transats started moving out to sea very quickly, closely followed by helicopters taking aeriel shots (must have been a fantastic view). They looked magnificent with their massive sails blowing in the wind, there was also a lot of turbulence caused by all the boats rushing to get a better view.

It did not take long before the boats gradually disappeared from view, and we had to turn back to Plymouth ... we did ask our captain to take us on to Boston, but strangely he seemed a bit reluctant! Still, it was a fascinating and unforgettable experience.